Victor Meldrew
I dont bloody believe it!
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2005
- Posts
- 258
MotoXXX said:Keep in mind we lost Air Tran because we didnt get bigger planes, we lost United partially because we didn't get bigger planes now USAIR wants them and if we dont we may lose again. I am just thinking outloud not trying to be negative. Still at least for now a great place to be. One last thing we better get retro pay, our old contract or better and not fly anything bigger for anything less. Anybody votes for less I will personally kick your A$$. We have learned our lesson there. Havn't heard much from the union lately, hope they feel the same way
We lost Airtran partly because we wouldn't get larger aircraft. Airtran asked us for a number that would not make it viable (less than 10). Secondly, which everyone seems to forget, Airtran was an experiment on thier (Airtran) part, thats all it was. As it happened the routes became too succesful and now 717's can be filled on them.
The owners have flat out said from day one when 70 seaters were being touted about that they view 70 seaters as nothing more than a "band-aid", a stop gap that will quickly turn into the 50 seaters of today, to little and to costly per RSM, larger more effiecent aircraft were the way to go. UAL tried to turn the thumb screws with us and the owners said no. End of story.
We stand to win our case for our old pay and contracts, the owners know this. This old contract was due this September. Now if we are going to even look at 90's there will have to be better pay (not in line with the 146 now won't happen), but I think the 90's will support better pay than the likes of JB, CHQ and MESA (which aren't far off our 50 seat rates) and we as a pilot group have to stand up for that. We won't be lied to again anything offered will be pulled apart and looked at closely.
The downside? We may just ask for too much and yes the flying will go elsewhere. A member on the board might not be enough to stave off continued 50 seat flying or the company will just implode from a complete "I don't give a rats @ss" attitude", which we are seeing a little of right now.